Standing Against the Whirlwind : Evangelical Episcopalians in Nineteenth-Century America (Religion in America) [Hardcover]

Diana Butler Bass (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195085426 | ISBN-13: 978-0195085426 | Publication Date: August 10, 1995

Standing Against the Whirlwind is a history of the Evangelical party in the Episcopal Church in nineteenth-century America. A surprising revisionist account of the church's first century, it reveals the extent to which evangelical Episcopalians helped to shape the piety, identity, theology, and mission of the church. Using the life and career of one of the party's greatest leaders, Charles Pettit McIlvaine, the second bishop of Ohio, Diana Butler blends institutional history with biography to explore the vicissitudes and tribulations of evangelicals in a church that often seemed inhospitable to their version of the Gospel. This gracefully written narrative history of a neglected movement sheds light on evangelical religion within a particular denomination and broadens the interpretation of nineteenth-century American evangelicalism as a whole. In addition, it elucidates such wider cultural and religious issues as the meaning of millennialism and the nature of the crisis over slavery.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A major contribution to our hitherto scanty knowledge of the Evangelical movement in 19th-century American Anglicanism....This is a well-researched and thoughtful contribution to American religious history and should be included in every library collection on the subject."--Choice

"This book should be read by all Evangelical Episcopalians, especially those preparing for ordination-for these, it should be required reading. And it would be helpful to have this book read by large numbers of Episcopalians generally, as it offers an important corrective to our popular church history. which tends to forge that evangelicalism can be episcopalian. There is, indeed, such a thing as Anglican Evangelicalism!"--The Episcopal Evangelical Journal

"The book is a brilliant case study of the conflicts within a denomination occupying a crucial position within the religious spectrum of American society and culture."--The Cresset

"...sure to incite further discussion and research."--Religious Studies Review

"...Butler has ably contributed to reviving interest in this important aspect of Episcopal experience."--Church History

About the Author

Diana Hochstedt Butler is at Westmont College, Santa Barbara.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195085426
• ISBN-13: 978-0195085426
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #919,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Church History Eye Opener!, April 23, 2003

By 

Rev. Gerald Jones (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Standing Against the Whirlwind : Evangelical Episcopalians in Nineteenth-Century America (Religion in America) (Hardcover)

Dr, Butler has taken a little known era and party of the Episcopal Church and given us a very readable and flowing description of the time and mind-set of a wing of the Church which few have studied and, of which, some have never heard. Her genuis is for telling the story through the ministry of one Evangelical Bishop, Charles Pettit McIlvanie, and uses his own articles, books and letters to relate his thoughts and the motivations behind his actions. Some consider her a "revisionist", but that term cannot be justly applied since she is probably the first historian to tell this enthralling story in detail. Church history is not a reader's delight, BUT Dr. Butler makes it managable and even enjoyable. Being a doctoral discertation developed into a book it bares none of the usual academic meanderings common to such works. My only criticism is Dr. Butler's seeming inability to stick to a chronological stream, Individuals are sometimes quoted prior to their introduction into the story line - a small flaw in an otherwise brilliant piece of historical prose. I advise buying it used as no book of 270 pages should command such a price as this one does new.